PMQs: debating the colour of the curtains as the house burns down

What is the point exactly of Prime Minister's Questions? Is it to provide ten minutes of political theatre for us, or is it for backbenchers to ask questions of the Prime Minister? Today, it failed at both. For half an hour, MPs, including the leader of the opposition, asked irrelevant or uninteresting party political questions and the Prime Minister answered them with slogans. The most important issue of the decade – the European debt crisis – produced no more than twenty seconds of comment. They might as well have been discussing the colour of curtains as the house burns down ("Orange, with red, and lots of smoke! How lovely!).

As James Kirkup notes, the Prime Minister's concern was to appear union friendly and non-Thatcherite, as today Danny Alexander and Francis Maude are desperate to convince the public sector unions to accept the Government's pension proposals without striking. Hence the generous endorsement of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is going about banker bashing. Fine. But couldn't Ed Miliband have pressed him to flesh out some other points? There were lots of thoughtful important questions Ed could have asked.

He could have asked whether the Government is worried that not contributing to the European bailout mechanism means Britain will be marginalised in the crucial negotiations at Cannes tomorrow. He could have asked whether the Prime Minister has any idea what Britain's place in Europe is in the event of a big push towards fiscal union in the Eurozone 17. These are big issues, on which the Prime Minister is depressingly vague. But he didn't: instead Ed asked about the business growth fund, attacking David Cameron's tendency to announce and forget. That's a fair point, but in the context, it just looks like political point scoring. And it's not even fun: it's boring.

Much of Parliament isn't like this. Treasury Questions, or the occasional opposition debates on the economy that Ed Balls keeps calling, are usually excellent. Most ministerial questions are not particularly lively, but important details of government plans and how they affect people's lives are discussed seriously. Questions are not all put up jobs of the "Isn't the Prime Minister the most wonderful man?" or "Isn't it all Labour's fault we're in this mess?" sort.

Parliament is like a puppet theatre which plays Punch and Judy when people are watching, but performs Shakespeare when they're not. Today's PMQs was proof enough of that.